To possess the Noble Eightfold Path

A forum for beginners and members of other Buddhist traditions to ask questions about Theravāda (The Way of the Elders). Responses require moderator approval before they are visible in order to double-check alignment to Theravāda orthodoxy.
new
Posts: 19
Joined: Fri Aug 26, 2016 11:09 am

To possess the Noble Eightfold Path

Post by new »

In Saṃyutta Nikāya 55:5 the Buddha says that one who possesses the Noble Eightfold Path is called a stream-enterer. What does it mean to possess the Noble Eightfold Path?
User156079
Posts: 1019
Joined: Thu Nov 12, 2015 4:17 am

Re: To possess the Noble Eightfold Path

Post by User156079 »

My version is that it simply means knowing the Path. Rather than knowing directions as one is instructed a Stream Winner has arrived at the Destination and knows the Path for himself. He has the Path in this sense while Non-Ariya has directions of another.
There is probably also some connection to having appropriated/internalized something and being unable to lose it.

As far as i know The Buddha never explained it in a Discourse but i havent read all of it.
Derek
Posts: 112
Joined: Wed Aug 28, 2013 12:31 pm

Re: To possess the Noble Eightfold Path

Post by Derek »

Yo hi, bhante, iminā ariyena aṭṭhaṅgikena maggena samannāgato, ayaṃ vuccati sotāpanno.

The key word is samannāgato ("endowed with"), which is why iminā ariyena aṭṭhaṅgikena maggena ("this noble eightfold path") is instrumental.

The previous few lines equated the noble eightfold path with the stream. These final lines equate the stream-enterer with "one endowed with the noble eightfold path."
perkele
Posts: 1048
Joined: Wed Feb 02, 2011 2:37 pm

Re: To possess the Noble Eightfold Path

Post by perkele »

Derek wrote:The previous few lines equated the noble eightfold path with the stream. These final lines equate the stream-enterer with "one endowed with the noble eightfold path."
Is one "endowed with the path" really someone who has reached stream-entry? Or is it possibly someone still on the path to stream-entry? As there is apparently this distinction between path and fruit for all the "noble attainments", and there was the assertion here that one who is still on the path to stream-entry could still slip away from it (which I find a bit puzzling, because there are suttas like this where the Buddha speaks of a certain class of persons, who are "incapable of passing away until [they have] realized the fruit of stream-entry", which are, I think, otherwise identified as "faith followers" or "dhamma followers" respectively, and I thought would fall into and make up the category of those persons who are clearly and definitely on the path to stream-entry as belonging to the "four pairs" of noble persons).

Maybe it is just due to somewhat confusing terms, partially stemming from the suttas, and partially from commentaries and/or abhidhamma - that, according to the suttas, one "endowed with the path" is definitely a "complete" stream-enterer (who has already attained the "fruition" (phala) moment of stream-entry, and not only the "path" (magga) moment [I think these magga and phala moments are actually Abhidhamma terms and concepts]), whereas one "on the path (magga) to stream-entry" according to Abhidhamma terminology would then actually be someone who is "on the path to becoming 'one endowed with the path', i.e. becoming a stream-enterer". :?
Derek
Posts: 112
Joined: Wed Aug 28, 2013 12:31 pm

Re: To possess the Noble Eightfold Path

Post by Derek »

perkele wrote:Is one "endowed with the path" really someone who has reached stream-entry?
That was to some extent answered in the essay "What Is Stream-Entry?" that I linked to in the previous thread on this subject (the first link in your post). In brief, these "religious" definitions of stream-entry are a later teaching, and the path/fruit definitions are even later.
perkele
Posts: 1048
Joined: Wed Feb 02, 2011 2:37 pm

Re: To possess the Noble Eightfold Path

Post by perkele »

Derek wrote:
perkele wrote:Is one "endowed with the path" really someone who has reached stream-entry?
That was to some extent answered in the essay "What Is Stream-Entry?" that I linked to in the previous thread on this subject (the first link in your post). In brief, these "religious" definitions of stream-entry are a later teaching, and the path/fruit definitions are even later.
Thanks for pointing out. Your advice and contributions in the topics here have all been very helpful and spot-on pertinent to the topics raised wherever I have seen so far. I appreciate that very much, and your essay on stream-entry is already on my reading list for when I find time for it. :anjali:
I have just raised related questions to the one brought up in the OP here and the previous topic on a German buddhist discussion board, mainly to find some answers what it is about with these path and fruition moments. (The German buddhists there were just expressing uncertainy regarding the question whether these "path" and "fruition" moments always occur in direct succession or not, and I sprinkled in and expanded upon the questions which I picked up from here.) Maybe your essay will be of help for me to elucidate some things more straightforwardly.
:thanks:
pegembara
Posts: 3465
Joined: Tue Oct 13, 2009 8:39 am

Re: To possess the Noble Eightfold Path

Post by pegembara »

Here is a more direct description.
At Savatthi. "Monks, eye-consciousness is inconstant, changeable, alterable. Ear-consciousness... Nose-consciousness... Tongue-consciousness... Body-consciousness... Intellect-consciousness is inconstant, changeable, alterable.

"One who has conviction & belief that these phenomena are this way is called a faith-follower: one who has entered the orderliness of rightness, entered the plane of people of integrity, transcended the plane of the run-of-the-mill. He is incapable of doing any deed by which he might be reborn in hell, in the animal womb, or in the realm of hungry shades. He is incapable of passing away until he has realized the fruit of stream-entry.

"One who, after pondering with a modicum of discernment, has accepted that these phenomena are this way is called a Dhamma-follower: one who has entered the orderliness of rightness, entered the plane of people of integrity, transcended the plane of the run-of-the-mill. He is incapable of doing any deed by which he might be reborn in hell, in the animal womb, or in the realm of hungry shades. He is incapable of passing away until he has realized the fruit of stream-entry.

"One who knows and sees that these phenomena are this way is called a stream-enterer, steadfast, never again destined for states of woe, headed for self-awakening."

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html
And what is right speech? Abstaining from lying, from divisive speech, from abusive speech, & from idle chatter: This is called right speech.
SarathW
Posts: 21231
Joined: Mon Sep 10, 2012 2:49 am

Re: To possess the Noble Eightfold Path

Post by SarathW »

The way I understand when a person realises that this is the path and this is not, he become a Sotapanna.
There is at least three type of Sotapanna.
Once you have no doubt about the path you become a Saddhanusari or Dhammausari person.
Obviously, you have to start practicing. Observing five precepts are the first sign of this.
“As the lamp consumes oil, the path realises Nibbana”
vinasp
Posts: 1675
Joined: Tue Aug 18, 2009 7:49 pm
Location: Bristol. United Kingdom.

Re: To possess the Noble Eightfold Path

Post by vinasp »

Hi new,

new said: - "What does it mean to possess the Noble Eightfold Path?"

It is never explained, because it cannot be explained in words.

The conceptual mind cannot grasp that which leads to the transcending of the conceptual mind.

That would be like the conceptual mind attempting to grasp conceptually the realm of the non-conceptual.

It is the arising of the non-conceptual mind, through which a unified state replaces the previous conceptual fragmentation.

"When all dhammas have been removed, all ways of speaking have also been removed."

Each of us has a non-conceptual mind which is prior to the conceptual mind, but we get stuck in the conceptual mind.

Regards, Vincent.
rajitha7
Posts: 338
Joined: Sat Sep 17, 2016 3:14 am

Re: To possess the Noble Eightfold Path

Post by rajitha7 »

Read this page. This has been tested and proven to work.

https://puredhamma.net/seeking-nibbana/ ... ha-anatta/
It's all -> here
paul
Posts: 1512
Joined: Tue May 31, 2011 11:27 pm
Location: Cambodia

Re: To possess the Noble Eightfold Path

Post by paul »

Q: What does it mean to possess the Noble Eightfold Path?

A: It means at the time of stream entry there is a "change-of-lineage" where the preparatory work having been done, the mind rejects and turns away from the external, the path arises as a unity and the mind turns towards nibbana for the first time.
Derek
Posts: 112
Joined: Wed Aug 28, 2013 12:31 pm

Re: To possess the Noble Eightfold Path

Post by Derek »

perkele wrote:Your advice and contributions in the topics here have all been very helpful and spot-on pertinent to the topics raised wherever I have seen so far.
Thank you.
perkele wrote:The German buddhists there were just expressing uncertainy regarding the question whether these "path" and "fruition" moments always occur in direct succession or not
Below are some extracts from the Visuddhimagga, chapter XXII, paragraphs 11, 14, and 15, on pages 703 and 704 of the Ñānamoli translation. They describes the final stages leading up to stream-entry, namely, change-of-lineage knowledge, path knowledge, and fruition knowledge:
And without pausing after the sign given by the change-of-lineage knowledge, the path follows upon it in uninterrupted continuity, and as it comes into being, it pierces and explodes the mass of greed, the mass of hate, and the mass of delusion, never pierced and exploded before.

And not only does it cause the piercing of this mass of greed, etc., but it also dries up the ocean of suffering of the round in the beginningless round of rebirths. It closes all doors to the states of loss. It provides actual experience of the seven noble treasures. It abandons the eightfold wrong path. It allays all enmity and fear. It leads to the state of the Fully Enlightened One’s breast-born
son. And it leads to the acquisition of many hundred other blessings. So it is the knowledge associated with the path of stream-entry, the provider of many hundred blessings, that is called knowledge of the path of stream-entry.

Immediately next to that knowledge, however, there arise either two or three fruition consciousnesses, which are its result.
For a contemporary description, here is Daniel Ingram on change-of-lineage knowledge, path knowledge, and fruition knowledge. These extracts are taken from Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha in the 2007 edition, chapter 24, pages 211 and 212:
13. Change of Lineage

Having understood things just as they are, this next stage, which also lasts for just a moment, “does the damage,” as a friend of mine joyfully put it. It permanently changes the minds of the meditators in ways that I will discuss in just a bit. They leave the ranks of the unenlightened and join the ranks of those that are. While the social designation of formal lineage transmission is a very useful thing to have received, the results of this stage are in fact what that symbolic act is all about. They have done it, and thus attain . . .

14. Path

This stage also lasts just a moment, and after the first completed progress of insight it marks the first moment of the newly awakened
being’s awakened life. The first time around, this is called “stream entry” or “first path” in the Theravada, the “fourth stage of the second path” or “the first bhumi” in the Tibetan tradition, and many names in Zen that are purposefully ambiguous. After a subsequent, new progress of insight it marks the attainment of the next level of awakening, and there are lots of names for those that will be discussed shortly. It is directly followed by . . .

15. Fruition

This is the fruit of all the meditator's hard work, the first attainment of ultimate reality, emptiness, Nirvana, God or whatever you wish to call it. In this non-state, there is absolutely no time, no space, no reference point, no experience, no mind, no consciousness, no nothingness, no somethingness, no body, no this, no that, no unity, no duality, and no anything else. Reality stops cold and then reappears. Thus, this is impossible to comprehend, as it goes completely and utterly beyond the rational mind and the universe. To “external time” (if someone were observing the meditator from the outside) this lasts only an instant. It is like an utter discontinuity of the space-time continuum with nothing in the unfindable gap.
User avatar
Dhammanando
Posts: 6492
Joined: Tue Dec 30, 2008 10:44 pm
Location: Mae Wang Huai Rin, Li District, Lamphun

Re: To possess the Noble Eightfold Path

Post by Dhammanando »

new wrote:In Saṃyutta Nikāya 55:5 the Buddha says that one who possesses the Noble Eightfold Path is called a stream-enterer. What does it mean to possess the Noble Eightfold Path?
The commentaries explain the phrase as referring to the simultaneous arising of all eight of the path-factors at the ariyan path-consciousness-moment. But to grasp what this means one needs to understand how the Eightfold Path is conceived in the Abhidhamma. Do you? If not I can go over it tomorrow.
Yena yena hi maññanti,
tato taṃ hoti aññathā.


In whatever way they conceive it,
It turns out otherwise.
(Sn. 588)
Derek
Posts: 112
Joined: Wed Aug 28, 2013 12:31 pm

Re: To possess the Noble Eightfold Path

Post by Derek »

Dhammanando wrote:one needs to understand how the Eightfold Path is conceived in the Abhidhamma. Do you? If not I can go over it tomorrow.
I would certainly be interested in learning about this.
new
Posts: 19
Joined: Fri Aug 26, 2016 11:09 am

Re: To possess the Noble Eightfold Path

Post by new »

Wow, lots of answers here. :thanks: I don't have the time right now to read/answer all of them, but I'm going to do it later. :reading:
User156079 wrote:My version is that it simply means knowing the Path. Rather than knowing directions as one is instructed a Stream Winner has arrived at the Destination and knows the Path for himself. He has the Path in this sense while Non-Ariya has directions of another.
There is probably also some connection to having appropriated/internalized something and being unable to lose it.
I see, it may be a difference between knowledge and undestanding.
Post Reply